Natural Pilates vs 9Round

9Round is the play, full stop. Scale is the obvious hammer: 141 franchised units against zero gives us an actual total addressable market to sell into immediately, not a future promise. The negative unit growth is a yellow flag, but it doesn’t erase the installed base—142 locations with an approved-supplier procurement model means franchisees can buy our software without corporate gatekeeping, shortening sales cycles and letting us land deals unit by unit even if the system is contracting. Natural Pilates has zero franchised units and a franchisor-controlled procurement model, so we’d be pitching a closed door with no customers behind it. TAM and terrain both tilt hard to 9Round.

The budget dimension is more nuanced. Natural Pilates’ investment range (low $429.6K, high $600K) signals deeper-pocket operators, but that capital is tied up in buildout and equipment, not software. A 7% royalty on a nonexistent franchisee base doesn’t beat 6% on 141 units producing actual revenue streams we can tap. 9Round’s lower startup cost ($160K–$390K) widens the owner-operator pool that needs lean, multi-function software—POS, scheduling, marketing automation—to run a semi-private gym model on thin staffing. That’s our sweet spot: affordable, high-utility tools sold into a large, fragmented, procurement-open fleet.

The only dimension where Natural Pilates looks interesting is timing—it’s a pre-growth concept, and getting in as the default tech stack before a rollout can create stickiness and lock out competitors. But that’s a speculative bet requiring a franchisor pilot with no current franchisee base, a stale FDD, and a controlled procurement model that likely forces a bundled solution anyway. 9Round’s current FDD and approved-supplier status let us start conversations tomorrow. We go where the units are.

Verdict: 9Round’s 141 open-buying franchise units crush Natural Pilates’ zero, making it the only viable revenue target right now.